I Just Absolutely Can't Wait To Buy An Apple Tablet... It's Going To Save Print!http://www.businessinsider.com/i-just-absolutely-cant-wait-to-buy-an-apple-tablet-its-going-to-save-print-2010-1/comments
en-usWed, 31 Dec 1969 19:00:00 -0500Tue, 31 Mar 2015 14:48:01 -0400David Carrhttp://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b58fd4300000000005cc1baBelieverThu, 21 Jan 2010 20:20:03 -0500http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b58fd4300000000005cc1ba
One all all, the POINT here is convergence--not print versus TV versus new media. These companies are all in the same corporate families for goodness sake. The Apple tablet becomes a distribution vehicle for converging content, that is, media that combines the best of video (TV) with context (print) with connectivity (internet/new media). And this product fits perfectly in the current lineup of high-def TV, laptops, and handhelds. We're talking a book-sized device that can rest on the bedside table or coffee table without looking, dare I say, computerish. Elegance is the name of the game when guests pop over and your tablet is laying around. But, don't fret, you can always slide the thing on the bookshelf if you want. Look, Apple has the product know-how as well as the marketing and distribution muscle to make this thing go. While this device will offer the same converged content as other types of devices, it will have a sweet spot--portable reading. This will kill the Kindle, revolutionize periodicals by providing a new distribution and sustainable business model (micro-transactions), and will save published books, too. You don't read War and Peace on a computer or an iPhone. You will on the Apple tablet.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41feff0000000000581d7etinboxMon, 04 Jan 2010 09:45:19 -0500http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41feff0000000000581d7e
Digital delivery will not cause people to pay for content that consists of gushing over the qualities of a not-yet-released product. There are not many cash buyers for Apple worshiping drivel.
Readers really want video!
And this will save print!
$800-1000, no problem!
...and on and on...
The problem that "print" has is not the medium, it's that not many will pay for low-quality logic applied to low-information "news."http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e8dd00000000008b39bbDean WormerMon, 04 Jan 2010 08:10:52 -0500http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e8dd00000000008b39bb
David, I have spent a career in television and then in digital. You are missing the big point.
Your friend was right, the internet (whether over tablets or whatever) is electronic, instant, dynamic. Print is static, delayed, fixed and linear output. But more important, the people who power that world think in those terms.
They think in terms of subscribers bought and continuously showing up on your door everyday. They think of long form, slow, pondered, crafted words.
The electronic purveyors of information think in terms of constant audience competition and fast but not always perfect information flow. If it’s wrong we'll fix it next hour. These kinds of differences create cultural imperatives that are simply unacceptable to each other inside these organizations. And that's before you even get to the turf wars.
Remember Olivetti the typewriter company? Anyone remember the IBM Selectric. In their end days, these were amazing machines. Almost type-set quality output with electronic memories. Typewriting was never so good...just before it died.
In the late '80's you could not cross the street in New York without almost getting hit by a bicycle messenger. They were everywhere. More everyday. Better faster cheaper. Until they were gone. Not fast enough. Not cheap enough to compete with fax and email.
I'll give the CD another five years before it is more or less completely replaced by files and chips.
Some magazines are better than ever today. Most magazine websites are awful yet the technology to bring them to life electronically on the web has been getting cheaper and easier for 10 years now, but where has this taken the magazine publishing world? Tablets won't change that.
The funnel, gatekeeper economics of the print ad markets are also in their end days. Electronic buying and selling of dozens of competing electronic media choices will pick the carcass clean.
Print as you know it, is dead. Trying to make a tablet the savior of the print publishing business, as John Cleese once said, "is like fighting a land war in China."
2010 will be another painful year of watching these dinosaurs die.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e72600000000001d4e5atim.hobbesMon, 04 Jan 2010 08:03:29 -0500http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e72600000000001d4e5a
Ah yes. A $1000 gadget will "save" print. Daddy will subscribe to Sports Illustrated, Mommy will get Elle magazine, they will make a deal on the schedule each one can use the tablet and the publishers will enjoy the profitability of the past. Thats' it!!!
Back to real world. Nothing will "save" the "old" print business model. There's a "new" model now, and the old one simply doesn't fit like before.
The decentralized new order is good anyway, except for the "old" industry.http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e2520000000000f90b8eRob DoyleMon, 04 Jan 2010 07:42:58 -0500http://www.businessinsider.com/c/4b41e2520000000000f90b8e
This guy is dreaming if he believes this will save print. Any tablet will have full web access and people will just browse for the information they want as they do now. Just in a much more natural and relax position on the couch.